The agrarian system of Moslem India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804119261

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-188010

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Moreland, William Harrison http://d-nb.info/gnd/172263670

Title:: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Edition:: 2. ed. Reissue (d. Ausg. Cambridge) 1929; [Reprint]

Place of publication:: Delhi

Publisher:: Oriental Books, Munshiram Manoharlal

Year of publication:: 1968

Scope:: XVII, 296 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. Antecedents

Collection:: Economics Books

2 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA from unrecorded changes in the relation between words and things; and in ranging over the available literature of the centuries which intervened between Asoka and the Moslem conquest, one is constantly assailed by the doubt whether similar changes may not have crept in to obscure the interpretation of the record. My statement of the elements of the Hindu system is thus necessarily tentative: in any case it is required in order to explain the terminology which I have adopted; and it may perhaps be of some service in directing the attention of specialists to aspects of the literature which have hitherto received ‘nadequate examination. For the durable or fundamental features of the Hindu agrarian system we must turn to the Dharma, or Sacred Law, the provisions of which could be refined or developed by successive writers, but not formally altered by legislative or executive action. The Sacred Law contemplates an agrarian position similar in essentials to that which we find at the opening of the Moslem period, and not very different from that which persisted to its close. There is the King in his capital, there is the Peasant in his village; and the relations between King and Peasant give us, at any rate, the skeleton of the system. Hitherto the Hindu King has a1sually been presented by modern writers as an absolute despot, divine in his person, bound by the Sacred Law, and subject to the influence of public opinion, but untram- melled by any human institutions. More recently some [ndian scholars have depicted him as holding a position comparable to that of modern constitutional monarchs, responsible to, or controlled by, councils or assemblies. The difference, which I am quite incompetent to discuss, is immaterial to my present purpose The important thing is that the Sacred Law postulates, under the title of King, a sovereign in the technical sense; whether the King acted independently, or by and with the advice of Ministers or Councils, makes no difference to the statement which follows. I have chosen the word Peasant to denote the other party to the relation, because on the whole it seems to involve less danger of misconception than any substitute which

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